Sunday Night TV and Open Thread

It's the men's superpipe finals tonight at the X Games, live on ESPN. Shaun White just moved into second place and Scotty Lago is in the lead. Louie Vito is doing really well too. Actually, they all did great on their first run. The second runs are just starting.

The SAG awards are also on, and a there's a new episode of Shameless on Showtime.

Jack ( the name he was given, and he seems to answer to it, sort of) came home last night. The other one didn't want to 'bond' with me, and let the dog choose, I say, in a rescue situation.

So only one new addition. He's a furball, but skinny underneath. I guess he'll get used to my style of cooking, though. He's not used to getting treats, so a 1" square of Pumpernickel bread caused amazing results... he kept looking for more!

winter is about to step on us big time. starting tonight and all day tomorrow they are predicting an INCH of ice. do you have any idea how much damage an inch of ice can do? and that is act 1 act is ten inches of snow on wed.
check out what two inches of ice can do

some of those people were without power for months because so many power lines were down.

if it's a bad one...the awning on my back porch came down yesterday due to snow/ice weight...along with the railing on the porch...crash bang boom.

Took some pictures for the landlady to file a claim, should she choose...then put up some old 2"x 4"'s & paneling as a temporary railing so the pooch doesn't slip-n-slide right off the 15' high porch...landlady coming by tonight to check it out, feel so bad because she needs another expense like a hole in the head, just like the rest of us.

I'm gonna offer to do the work come spring if she can score the materials. I think the gutters might go next...monster icicles hanging off them suckers. And experiencing mini basement floods due to all the ground water...just nowhere for all the water to go, the soil is so saturated.

I mean we are use to snow, and winter. But this is getting old... Parking anywhere is usually insane, and now everyone has the trash barrells out so you can't park in anywhere that isn't home. Now we are expecting possibly another foot of snow on Tuesday/Wednesday. And if not snow, freezing rain/ice - which is even worse.

Towns are running out of money, and the city is running out of places to dump snow, so you get stories like this.

If this keeps up we are gonna have some serious flooding issues this spring when it all melts. Especially if there is anything like the historically bad rain we had last year.

The parking situation in the boroughs is getting nasty...I can see both sides. You bust your arse shoveling out a spot for somebody else to use has gotta drive ya nuts...put ya can't reserve spots with garbage cans either, first come first serve is the rule.

especially in a residential neighborhood. Every spot is taken by someone who lives there. So you're diggin out a spot no matter what. Just because I happened to be parked waaay down the street during a storm, now that's the only spot I can take for a week? And what if friends come over? Usually there is one or two spots open for a few hours, but now they are always "claimed". It drives me nuts. The only people using the spots are going to be people who live there or live near.

It snows, you gotta shovel, everyone with a car does. Suck it up and get over it.

30's this week. We just happened to have one of those days out of nowhere that actually happened on a Saturday for once. I feel for you. My mother lives just north of Boston and I've seen pics of her yard and neighborhood, not pretty.

I'm young and able-bodied, so I'm ahead in the winter games...I feel bad for all the old folks who have to do back-breaking shoveling and sh*t. Kids don't seem to be interested in making a few bucks like I was back in the day, and the adults out there hustling with shovels don't wanna hear 20 bucks, they want 50 or more...and I can't blame them, it is hard work.

As of this writing, we are expecting light freezing rain late afternoon today, changing to snow on Tuesday followed by significant blowing through Wednesday. "Snow accumulations of 12 to 20 inches are also possible north of I-72 Tuesday and Tuesday night." We are pretty much exactly even with I-72.

If you are new to the area and haven't experienced a major winter storm, I strongly encourage you to keep a durable snow shovel, hat, gloves and blanket in your car. This is the worst predicted storm I can remember in the ~30 years I've lived in Champaign. It is likely to be followed by severe wind chills with considerable blowing of snow.

I was at ISU in '77 -'79 and we had some bad ones there out on the central Illinois prairie. That snow followed by big wind sounds familiar...I'm shivering just thinking about it. Hunker down and stay safe.

took me a while to get used to the wind. which is unbelievable. nothing in hundreds of miles to stop or slow it. the last time it snowed mulitple inches (maybe 5 or 6) there was a bank perimeter about 10 feet out from my house that was waist deep.

now I like to lay in bed and listen to the wind howl around the eves of the house.

I have stood at the top and looked down and it is daunting, not to mention nauseating. So steep and fast. that they can do this on a board and LAND is so exciting for athletes. I love this event. And my eldest ended his pipe career with a bone bruise on a fall in it his senior year of HS, but is now building pipes for Northstar. DO the young never learn they are mortal?

Rogue Justice show tonight was excellent, highlighting the awful, corrupt SBI in NC that has been acting for years, decades, as essentially an amoral arm of the prosecutor's office, creating whatever evidence they need for conviction, innocent defendants being convicted, two cases profiled in this episode.

Watch if you can on replay tonight. Pretty outrageous situation, possibly still ongoing.

Is it me, or is the right most people become emotional about is the right to deceive each other?

Q: Why are people mendacious?

A: Because it is fun, sometimes profitable,
envy, makes an otherwise mundane life appear
exciting, hide, so as not to hurt a person's
feelings, necessity, human nature, inferority
complex, to separate insiders from outsiders,
engaged in evil, immoral, or harmful actions,
story telling, to mislead, keep secrets,
acceptance, exclusivity, intelligence testing,
humor, fake it until you make it, nothing is
what it appears to be, duplicity, acting,
fear, distrust, prove a point, to please, ego,
make fun of self or others, to end torture,
and to be elected.

Said a similar thing, that he did not feel that threatened or in danger. He did say that groups of people are patrolling together trying to keep their families and neighborhoods safe, but he wasn't overwhelmed with fear.

One of the oldest and saddest ones, though, is dredged back up by Steve Benen this week, highlighting the gaudy spectacle of Bill Maher asking Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) if he "believes" in evolution.

"Real Time" host Bill Maher asked Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) a fairly straightforward question: "Do you believe in evolution?" Kingston not only said rejects the foundation of modern biology, (sic) he explained it this way: "I believe I came from God, not from a monkey." He added, "If it happened over millions and millions of years, there should be lots of fossil evidence."

Seriously, that's what he said.

. I can also relate to the temptation to deride those who disagree about evolution or other scientific principles because I did it myself when I was younger. It's easy, as a young man, to be not only invincible but convinced that you're smarter than everyone else on the planet - particularly those stupid old people.

But as we age, hopefully we learn a little more tolerance and realize our own limitations.

ftr
I AM old and I have no problem at all calling out the stupid old people.

Not so stunning really, more's the pity. I've come to be more surprised when conservatives admit an acceptance of evolution, or even a clue as to what it means. What surprised me was that D. L. Hughly agreed - he does not 'believe' in evolution either. The stupid seems to be spreading.

legitimate protected categories (like race, sexual orientation, gender, etc.) as something that cannot be criticized. So any ridiculous thing people believe or do is okay as long as it's part of their "beautiful spiritual belief". Unless you are a scientoligist.

I've always been partial to the theory promoted decades ago by the discoverer of the DNA dbl helix, Francis Crick, who proposed in print that life began on Earth when it was brought here by spaceship. Sounds wacky, but he has plenty of scientific cred. Beyond that however, he was an evolutionist, iirc, but his life origins theory I find delectable.

to this clip from his show in 2008 with Dan Savage, he was anti-gay marriage (pro-Prop 8) but maybe not against compromise solutions like civil unions. He didn't strike me as a confirmed homophobe but rather someone kinda typical of the AA community on these matters, at least as of 3 years ago. Traditional church-based views, but not harshly discriminatory against gays as some/most on the far right are.

Hughley just from this one clip and nothing else strikes me as not stupid nor so bigoted against gays that he wouldn't be open to changing his mind over time.

One more childhood dream crushed. Although looking back, I had really poor taste when I was 5 years old... But Jonathan was my favorite New Kid. Apparently he was "outed" publicly by his ex-flame former teen-idol Tiffany.

This may mean nothing to most of you, but they were very significant figures during my childhood. The New Kids are from my neighborhood and I remember watching them play basketball at the neighborhood park with my sisters. They are the only "famous" autographs I ever got, although I have since lost them. And they also contributed to the belief I had for a lot of my youth that everyone I heard on the radio was from Boston, and people in other cities had completely stars.

a significant impediment to winning the affection of girls in junior high school...how could any squeaky voiced pimple faced junior high school boy compete with a girls favorite New Kid? We hated those dudes...and their "music", using the term loosely, sucked:)

I bet. The first CD my sisters and I ever owned was the New Kids Christmas album. We still listen to it every year when we are decorating the tree, much to my parents dismay. My mom keeps trying to replace it with some classical christmas music. But since my dad can't stand that either, it's 3 vs 1 and the kids end up winning. You just can't beat tradition.

They should at least be happy we were too old (and had better musical taste by then) to fall for the Back Street Boys :)

How can you not with hits such as "Funky Funky Christmas", or "I Still Believe in Santa Clause" (really?), or the always fun "Last Night I saw Santa Clause". Combined with sappy classics and higher falsettos than you knew were possible - what's not to love?

Then there is this gem:
"Sneaking downstairs on Christmas Eve
I saw a sight you just wouldn't believe
St. Nick by the fireplace
Dusting off his beard with a frown on his face

He said hey, I said huh, he said, you, I said what
He said you left the fire burning and I burnt my butt"

If that's not better than the philharmonic orchestra playing We Wish You a Merry Christmas, than I don't know what is :)

the "bad-boy" one - so out of place, perhaps. But the old one was John Knight. I think Donnie was around the same age as the others. Jordan Knight was the super-star, Joey MacIntire was the cute young one, and Danny Wood was just there.

I was of the age when my musical tastes were imposed upon me. I don't remember who got us the CD for Christmas, but it came with our first ever family CD player from an uncle, so either that uncle was really "with it" (which I kind of doubt) or our parents decided to indulge us, as none of us were really old enough to buy our own CDs. I doubt they knew they'd be paying for it still 20 years later :)

What about the Monkeys? They were pretty dippy right? Or the Jackson 5, the Partridge Family, the Osmonds... That might have been later though, I don't know.

The president needs independent voters. What do you think those voters want right now?

They want cooperation. Their feeling is that there are things more important than party. That's a feeling we share. It's going to be harder to win over those voters if you take a harshly partisan, dogmatic stance.

Independent stance to solve problems I would probably agree with that. But when they say they are not bound by party dogma, they just mean Democratic party dogma. By independent they just mean they are going to mix in some Republican dogma.

my hoes were that a younger president would have a lot more fresh ideas to bring to the table. Instead so much of the last two years has been recycling of the same old s**t. I really do look forward to the future when a truly new generation takes over.

it's all about what the president needs, not what the country needs, and it isn't important whether one policy is better than another, or whether it's a Democratic policy or a Republican policy, or whether it helps get us where we need to go.

Whatever policies and positions Obama comes up with are going to be identified as Democratic ones, even if they are clearly warmed-over GOP policies, even if they came right out of a Republican/conservative think tank, so what's the point of even having a political party if there isn't going to be any effort to formulate, stand behind and advocate for the best policies and positions, but to water them down, dumb them down, strip them of meaning and purpose?

Seriously, do Obama and his brain trust believe that this mushy middle, no one's happy, positioning is best represented by the independent voter, and that as long as they're happy, the rest of us will get on board?

I am mightily weary of this exercise in vanity and ego that has taken over governance; I get campaigning, I do, but Obama seems to be governing the same way he campaigns, with no fixed ideology, no lines he won't cross, no vision other than for the one reflected back at him when he looks in a mirror.